Javed Khan

Javed Khan (9 June 1971-) was a British-Pakistani journalist and broadcaster. He worked in television journalism for several years before publishing his 2007 book Greetings from Bury Park, which recounted how Bruce Springsteen's music inspired him to pursue his dreams despite his family's disapproval and widespread racism amid the Thatcher era.

Biography
Javed Khan was born in Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan on 9 June 1971, the son of Malik and Noor Khan and the brother of Yasmeen and Shazia. In May 1974, his mother brought him and his sisters to Luton, England, where their father had gone to find work in 1963, and they were raised in the Luton Park Estate, a suburban council estate. During his primary school years, he fell in love with the music of Bruce Springsteen, as he felt that the themes of escaping the working-class "death trap", chasing one's dreams, and doing better than one's hard-working father resonated strongly with him. He was raised in a traditionalist Muslim household, and his father strongly disapproved of his appreciation for Western culture and of his dream of becoming a writer instead of a doctor. However, Javed won an essay contest in 1987, allowing him to attend a lecture at Monmouth University in New Jersey, where he and his Sikh friend Amolak visited Springsteen's home towns of Long Branch and Asbury Park. He went on to work at ITN for six years, and he became a producer and reporter for Channel 4 News before writing Greetings from Bury Park in 2007, documenting his life growing up a Muslim teenager in Luton amid the Thatcher era and widespread xenophobia.